Google uses to determine which pages should be in the first results for what searches. If you apply all these elements of web positioning in your pages, you will have many options to be in the top positions of the SERPs .
Doman factors
- Domain age : Google takes into account the age of a domain at the time of positioning, but does not give much importance.
- Keyword in the domain : It does not have the impact of time, but having the keyword in the domain is still a sign of relevance.
- Keyword as the first word of the domain : A domain that starts with its target keyword, has an advantage over sites that do not use it or that place it in the center or end of its domain.
- Domain registration length : Valuable domains are paid in advance for several years, while the rest are rarely used for more than one year. Therefore, the date a domain expires can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain.
- Keyword in the subdomain name : If the keyword appears in the subdomain, you can boost the ranking.
- Domain History : A site with volatile property (via whois) can tell Google to “reset” the site’s history, denying the links that point to the domain.
- Exact match domain : It can be an advantage if the site is of quality. But if not, due to the latest updates from Google, it is vulnerable to penalty.
- Public vs. Private WhoIs: Private WhoIs information can be a sign that “there is something to hide”. Therefore, the best option is to keep it public.
- WhoIs Owner Penalized : If Google identifies a particular person as a spammer, it makes sense to investigate other sites owned by that person.
- Country TLD Extension : Having a Country Code Level Domain (.es, .fr, .it) helps site ranking for that particular country … but limits the site’s ability to position globally.
Page factors
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- Keyword in the title tag : The title tag is the second most important part of the web page (in addition to the content of the page) and, therefore, sends a strong SEO signal on the page.
- The title tag begins with the keyword : Title tags that start with a keyword tend to have better results than the title tags with the keyword at the end of the tag.
- Keyword in the label description : Another sign of relevance. It’s not especially important, but it still makes a difference.
- The keyword appears on the H1 tag : The H1 tags are a “second title tag” that sends another signal of relevance to Google.
- The keyword is the most used in the content : That a keyword appears more than any other probably acts as a signal of relevance.
- Length of content : Google prefers extensive content to superficial articles. The length of the content is related to the search engine position.
- Keyword density : Although it is not as important anymore, Google uses keyword density to determine the theme of a web page.
- Keywords LSI : They are semantically related keywords. LSI keywords help search engines extract the true concept of words with more than one meaning. The presence of LSI also acts as a signal of content quality.
- Keywords LSI in title and description : As with the content of the web page, the LSI keywords in page meta tags help Google to discern between synonyms. It can also act as a signal of relevance.
- Speed of loading pages through HTML : Google and Bing use the speed of loading pages as one of the 200 SEO factors of classification. Search engine spiders can estimate the speed of a site fairly accurately based on the code of the page and the size of the file. You can see the loading speed of your website with PageSpeed .
- Duplicate content : Identical content (even slightly modified) can negatively influence the visibility of a site. To check if Google sees your content as copied, you can use the Plagium tool .
- Rel = Canonical : When used correctly, the use of this tag may prevent Google from considering duplicate pages of content.
- Speed of loading pages through Chrome : Google can also use Chrome’s user data to get better handling of the loading time of a page, since it takes into account the speed of the server, the use of CDN and other signals of site speed not related to HTML.
- Optimization of images : The images send a lot of information through its file name, alternative text, title, description and legend. So we must optimize images for SEO .
- Constant content updates: The latest update from Google favors recently updated content, especially for time-sensitive searches. To highlight the importance of this SEO factor, Google shows the date of the last update of a page.
- Magnitude of content updates : Adding or removing whole sections is a more meaningful update than changing a few words.
- Page Update History : The frequency of page updates over time also tells Google that the content of that website is refreshed periodically.
- Keyword location : Having a keyword in the first 100 words of the content of a page is one of the 200 important SEO factors.
- Keyword in H2, H3 : Having your keyword in a subtitle H2 or H3 also influences the relevance, although it seems that to a lesser extent. If you need help look at our web maintnance rates and we will do it for you.
- Order of the words in the keyword : An exact match between the search and the keyword of the content of a page classifies better than the same keyword phrase ordered differently.
- Outbound link quality : Many experts believe that linking to authority sites allows sending trust signals to Google, so it would be one of the 200 SEO factors to consider.
- Topic of the outbound link : Search engines can use the content of the pages you link to as a signal of relevance.
- Grammar and spelling : A good use of grammar and spelling indicate quality in the content.
- Syndicated content : Is the content of the page original? If it is copied from an indexed page, it will not classify as well as the original.
- Useful supplementary content : It is an indicator of the quality of a page and therefore helps Google ranking. Examples include currency converters, loan interest calculators and interactive recipes.
- Number of outgoing links : Too many dofollow links from our website can “distribute” the PageRank, so the position of our own page will be affected.
- Multimedia : Images, videos and other multimedia elements act as a signal of content quality.
- Number of internal links : The number of internal links to a page indicates its importance in relation to other pages of the site.
- Quality of internal links : Internal links from pages with authority in the domain have a stronger effect than if we do it from pages with low BP.
- Broken links : If you have too many broken links it will appear that your site has been abandoned.
- Reading level : There is no doubt that Google calculates the level of reading (basic language, technical terms …) of the web pages.
- Affiliate links: Affiliate links do not harm your rating unless you have too many.
- HTML errors : Many errors in the HTML code penalize.
- DA of the page : A page of a domain with authority will position better than a page of a domain with less authority. To analyze the DA of your web you can use Moz .
- PageRank of page : It is not confirmed, but it is assumed that pages with higher PR tend to be classified better than the rest.
- URL length : The URL too long can hurt search visibility.
- URL path : A page closer to the home page can get a slight increase in authority.
- Human editors : Although it is not proven either, Google has filed a patent for a system that allows human editors to influence SERPs.
- Category of the page : The category in which the page appears is a sign of relevance. A page that is part of a category related to it gets a boost of relevance.
- WordPress Tags : Tags are the WordPress characteristic relevancy signal. It is a good idea to relate post of the same theme with these labels.
- Keyword in URL : Another one of the 200 SEO factors very important in the positioning.
- Text of the URL : Google reads the category of the URL and can guess the theme of the page.
- References and Sources : Cite your sources. The Google Quality Guides make you see which are the references when consulting certain pages. However, Google has denied using external links as a classification signal.
- Numbered lists : Help break down content for readers, making them easier to use. Google agrees and prefers the content with sections and numbers.
- Priority of page in the Sitemap : The priority of a page within the sitemap.xml file can influence the classification.
- Too many external links : They distract and hide the content, so Google thinks you do it because it’s not worth it.
- Number of other keywords : If the page is classified for several keywords, it can be seen as an internal quality sign.
- Age of the page : Although Google prefers new content, an older page that is updated regularly may outperform a new page.
- Easy to use structure : Improving the user experience allows easy access to content.
- Parked domains : An update of Google decreased the search visibility of these domains.
- Useful content : It’s the most important thing, make sure you have unique and relevant content.
Site factors
- New and valuable content : Google has stated that they are pursuing sites that do not provide anything new or useful.
- Contact page : Google and also users prefer sites with contact information. If to this we add that it matches your whois information, better than better.
- Domain TrustRank : Site trust is an important SEO factor. It is measured using the inbound links from sites with high confidence.
- Site architecture: A well-structured architecture helps Google organize your content by topic.
- Site updates : The frequency of updates and, especially when new content is added to the site, is an SEO factor to consider.
- Number of pages : The number of pages is one of the 200 SEO factors without much authority, although more is always better.
- Presence of Sitemap : A sitemap helps search engines index your pages faster, improving visibility.
- Site uptime : A long period of inactivity due to site maintenance or server problems can damage your ranking.
- Server location : You can influence the location of your site in different geographic regions. It is important especially for geo-specific searches.
- SSL Certificate : Google has confirmed that they index SSL certificates and that they use HTTPS as a positioning factor.
- Conditions and privacy : These two pages help to tell Google that a site is reliable on the Internet.
- Duplicate Meta information on the site : Doubling the meta information on your site can reduce the visibility of your page.
- Minimalist navigation : This style of design helps users find what they want more easily, since the distractions within the page are minimal.
- Mobile optimization : Responsive design is currently essential. Google has also begun to penalize non-responsive sites in searches from mobile devices.
- YouTube : It is owned by Google, so there is no doubt that by improving SEO positioning on YouTube , our videos will receive preferential treatment.
- Site Usability : A site that is difficult to use or navigate can harm the ranking by reducing site time, page views and bounce rate.
- Use of Google Analytics and Google Tools for webmasters : It is believed that using these two tools on your site can improve their indexing. They can also directly influence the ranking by providing Google with more data to work on.
- User Reviews : It seems that they play an important role in the algorithm. So it is important to know how to manage reviews on Google .
Link factors
- Age of the domain : Inbound links from old domains can be more powerful than new domains.
- Number of reference domains : It is one of the 200 most important SEO factors in the Google algorithm.
- Number of links from different IP addresses : Suggest a greater breadth of sites that link you.
- Number of link pages : The total number of pages that link to our website, even if some are in the same domain, is a classification SEO factor.
- Alt Tag : The Alt text is the image version of the anchor text.
- Links from .edu or .gov domains : It is thought that there are privileges for links from .gov and .edu domains.
- Authority of the linking page : The authority of the reference page is an extremely important point within the 200 SEO factors.
- Link domain authority: The authority of the reference domain plays a crucial role in the importance of a link.
- Competitor links: Links from other pages appearing in the same SERP can be more valuable for the positioning of a page for that particular keyword.
- Page sharing : The number of social actions at the page level can influence the value of the link.
- Temporary links : Google penalizes people who create and quickly delete spam links.
- Guest Posts : Collaborations on external blogs can be a fundamental part of a white hat SEO campaign. Although a contextual link on the page is usually more valuable. If you want to participate in our blog as a guest author, check the conditions in our guide for guest post .
- Links to the domain of the website where the page is located : The links to the main page of a reference page can have a special importance when evaluating the weight of a site and, therefore, that of a link.
- Links nofollow : One of the most controversial topics regarding the 200 SEO factors. According to Google, they do not usually follow them. But having a certain percentage of nofollow links gives a natural appearance to your network of links.
- Diversity of types of links : Having an unusually large percentage of your links comes from a single source will strike you as webspam. Diversify brings naturalness.
- Sponsored Links : Words such as “sponsors” or “sponsored links” can decrease the value of a link.
- Contextual links : The links embedded within the content of a page are considered more powerful than the links in any other site.
- Redirects 301 to the page : The links coming from the 301 redirects diminish the PR.
- Anchor Text of links : Provide more accurate descriptions of web pages.
- Anchor Text of the internal link : It is another signal of relevance, although probably to a lesser extent than the previous one.
- Title of the link : The title of the link (the text that appears when the cursor is passed over it) is also used as one of the 200 SEO factors.
- Country of the reference domain : Obtaining links from top-level domain extensions specific to a country (.de, .es, .co, .uk) may help to rank better in that country.
- Location of the link in the content : The links at the beginning of a content have a little more weight than the links at the end.
- Location of the link on the page : In general, the links embedded in the content are more powerful than the links in the footer or in the sidebar.
- Relevance of the link domain : A link from a site in a similar niche is stronger than a link from an unrelated site. That is why any effective SEO strategy today focuses on obtaining relevant links.
- Relevance at the page level : The link from a page related to the content of yours is more powerful than a link from an unrelated one.
- Text around the link : Google discovers whether a link to your site is a recommendation or has a negative connotation. The links with positive terms around them are probably better for you.
- Keyword in the title : Google pays more attention to links from pages that contain your keyword in the title.
- Positive link speed : A site with positive link speed helps your positioning.
- Negative speed of the link : Case opposite to the previous one.
- Links from reference pages : Links from pages that are considered to be the main sources of information on a certain topic receive special treatment.
- Links from authority sites : It is better to get a link from a site with authority than from a micronicho.
- Reference from Wikipedia : Although the links are nofollow, getting a Wikipedia link gives you a bit of added confidence in the eyes of the search engines.
- Co-Occurrences : The words that appear around your links help Google to know what this page is about.
- Backlink Age : Older links have more visibility than the newly created backlinks.
- Links from real sites : Due to the proliferation of blog networks, Google probably gives more weight to the links coming from “real sites” than from fake blogs. They are likely to use branding and user interaction cues to distinguish between them.
- Natural link profile : A site with a “natural” link profile will rank higher and last in time.
- Reciprocal links : Excessive link exchange should be avoided.
- Links of user generated content : Google is able to identify the links generated by the user against those of the owner of the real site.
- Links from 301 : They may lose some authority compared to a direct link.
- Schema.org Microformats : Pages that support microformats can be classified on top of pages that do not tolerate them. This can be a direct boost, since pages with microformats have a higher CTR.
- DMOZ Sites : Many believe that Google gives DMOZ sites a little more confidence.
- Site TrustRank : Determine how much “TrustRank” is transferred to your page.
- Number of outgoing links on the page : PageRank is finite. A link from a page with hundreds of outbound links is less PR than a page with only a few links.
- Links from forum profiles : Due to the amount of current spam, Google can significantly devalue links from profiles in forums.
- Number of words in the content : A link from a content of 1000 words is more valuable than one from a fragment of 25 words.
- Content quality : Links from badly written content or do not transfer as much value as links from well written content and multimedia elements.
- Site-wide links: Site links are “compressed” to count as a single link.
User factors
- Organic CTR for a keyword : pages with the highest CTR get a SERP boost for that particular keyword.
- Organic CTR for all keywords : The organic CTR of a page (or site) for all keywords ranks well because it is a human interaction signal based on the user.
- Bounce rate : It is a method that Google uses to know the interest of a site, the pages where people enter and exit quickly do not give very good image.
- Direct traffic : it is confirmed that Google uses data from Google Chrome to determine whether or not people visit a site and how often. Sites with a lot of direct traffic have more visibility.
- Repeated traffic : You can also check if users return to a page or site after visiting it. Sites with repeated visitors can get an increase in Google results.
- Blocked sites : Google has interrupted this feature in Chrome. However, Panda uses this function as a quality signal.
- Chrome bookmarks: Pages that receive bookmarks in Chrome have improved their positioning.
- Data from the Google toolbar : Google uses them, however, in addition to the page load speed and malware, it is not known what type of data they collect from the toolbar.
- Number of Comments : The pages with many comments can be a sign of user interaction and quality.
- Time of permanence : Google pays a lot of attention to the waiting time, that is, how much time people spend on your page when they come from a Google search. If people spend a lot of time on your site, it is taken as a sign of quality.
Algortime factors
- The search needs new features : Google offers new pages a boost for certain searches.
- The search needs diversity : Google adds diversity to a SERP for ambiguous keywords.
- User browsing history : The sites you visit frequently while connected to Google will appear before for your searches.
- User search history : Your previous searches influence the results of your new searches.
- Geographic targeting : Google gives preference to sites with a local server IP and a country-specific domain name extension.
- Safe search : search results with words or adult content will not appear for people with secure search enabled.
- Google+ circles: Google shows higher results for authors and sites that you added to your Google Plus circles.
- DMCA complaints : Google penalizes pages with DMCA complaints.
- Diversity of Domains : For each SERP page, different domains appear so that there is variety.
- Transactional searches : Google sometimes shows different results for keywords related to purchases.
- Local searches : Google usually places Local Google+ results on top of “normal” organic SERPs.
- Google News : Some keywords activate a Google News box.
- Preference for brands : Google has begun to give priority in the results to the big brands a boost for certain searches.
- Purchase results : Sometimes the Google Shopping results are shown in the organic SERPs.
- Results with image : Google registers our organic listings of image results for searches commonly used in Google Images.
- Easter Eggs : Google has a dozen easter eggs (secrets) related to the searches and from time to time you can find them.
- Disavow Tool : With this Google tool to disavow links, you can eliminate a manual or algorithmic penalty imposed on a site with negative SEO.
- Number of Tweets : Like the links, the tweets on a page can influence your Google ranking.
- Authority of Twitter user accounts : It is likely that tweets from older Twitter profiles and with a lot of followers have more effect than tweets from new accounts with low influence.
- “Like” number on Facebook : Although Google can not see most Facebook accounts, they are likely to consider the number of likes a page receives as one of the 200 SEO factors for positioning.
- Facebook shares: The shares, since they are more similar to a link, have more influence than the likes.
- Authority of Facebook user accounts : As with Twitter, actions from popular Facebook pages can have more weight.
- Pinterest Pins : Pinterest is a popular social network with a large amount of public data. It is likely that Google considers it within its 200 SEO factors.
- Votes in other social places : Sites like Reddit or Stumbleupon could also influence SEO.
- Number of +1 in Google +: It is the social network of Google, so the +1 sum in the positioning.
- Authority of Google + user accounts : The + 1 from accounts with authority are worth more than the other profiles.
- Recognized authorship : Information linked to verified profiles will be classified higher than the content without such verification.
- Relevance of the social signal : Google probably uses relevant information from the account that shares the content and the text surrounding the link.
- Social signals at the site level : They can increase the general authority of a site, which will increase the search visibility of all your pages.
Brand factors
- Name of the brand in the Anchor Text : It is a simple but strong brand signal.
- Brand searches : It’s simple, people look for brands. If people search directly for the name of your site, Google gives you the brand poster.
- The site has a Facebook page and I like it : Brands tend to have Facebook pages with many likes.
- The site has a Twitter profile with followers : Twitter profiles with enough followers make the brand popular.
- Official Linkedin page : Most real businesses have Linkedin pages of the company.
- Employees listed on Linkedin : Having profiles of LinkedIn users who say they work for your company is a brand signal.
- Legitimacy of social media accounts : A social media account with 100,000 followers and 3 publications is not the same as an account with 100,000 followers with a lot of interaction.
- Mentions to the brand in news sites : the big brands are mentioned in Google News all the time. In fact, some brands even have their own Google News feed on the first page.
- Co-Citations : Brands are mentioned without having to link. Google is likely to consider non-hyperlinked brand mentions as a brand signal.
- Number of RSS subscribers : Considering that Google owns the popular Feedburner RSS, it makes sense to consider RSS subscriber data as a sign of brand popularity.
- Location in the Google+ listing Local : Real businesses have offices. Google may use location data to determine whether or not a site is a great brand.
- Your business pays taxes : Google can see if a site is associated with a business that pays taxes.
Factores on page
- Panda Penalties : Sites with low quality content (mainly link farms) are less visible in the results after receiving a Panda penalty.
- Request for Reconsideration : A request for reconsideration can successfully lift a sanction.
- Redirects : If they catch you using “rare” redirects, they can penalize you and even not index them.
- Popups : Popups and ads that distract people lower the quality of the site.
- Site over-optimization : Excessive repetition of keywords, abuse of header labels … end up having the opposite effect to the one we are looking for.
- Over-optimization of the page : Unlike Panda, Penguin points to the individual page and not the site.
- Announcements : Sites with many ads and little content are penalized.
- Hiding Affiliate Links : Trying to hide affiliate links may result in a penalty.
- Affiliate Sites : It’s no secret that Google is not the biggest fan of affiliates. And many think that sites that monetize with affiliate links are subject to additional surveillance.
- Self-generated content : If they suspect that the site is generating content by computer, it could be penalized or removed from the results pages.
- Excess of links nofollow : Try not to transfer authority by putting all the links nofollow, it is not fair play, neither for Google
- IP address marked as spam : If your server’s IP address is marked as spam, it can damage all the sites on this server.
- Spam in Meta Tags : The filling of keywords in meta tags can also be pursued.
Factores off page
- Unnatural flow of links : A sudden and unnatural entry of links indicates that these links are false.
- Penguin penalty : Sites that have been penalized by Google Penguin are less visible in the search.
- High percentage of links of low quality : Many links from sites used for black hat SEO (such as blog comments and forum profiles) can harm positioning.
- Domain relationship : Sites with an abnormally high number of links from unrelated sites are more susceptible to Penguin penalties.
- Warning of unnatural links : If Google sends you this message, you can now hurry to remove links that harm you or will be followed by a penalty.
- Links from the same IP : Obtaining links from sites with the same IP server may indicate the creation of a non-natural network of links.
- Anchor Text “harmful “: Having links pointing to your site with anchor text related to adult content, drugs … will seriously harm you.
- Manual penalty : Google sometimes distributes manual penalties if you see something weird on your site.
- Sell links : The sale of links can impact the PageRank of the toolbar and may harm your search visibility.